'German arms fueling regional conflicts'

Press TV, Wed, 16 Dec 2009 17:36:49 GMT

The German Catholic and Protestant churches have expressed concern over the country's growing military exports to the hotbeds of regional conflicts around the world.

The inter-confessional watchdog Joint Conference Church and Development (GKKE), in its annual report compiled in collaboration with several German peace and conflict research institutes, announced that the arms export licenses granted by the government amounted to €5.78 billion ($8.5 billion) in 2008.

The amount represents a 36 percent increase in the German arms exports compared with 2007, the report said, according to Deutsche Welle.

Karl Juesten, the GKKE co-chairman and head of the Catholic Office in Berlin, slammed the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel for what he described as the violation of the "restrictive guidelines on weapons exports" established by former chancellor Gerhard Schroeder in 1998.

Juesten reiterated that the hike in military exports was a result of the Merkel government's policies, which were "clearly aimed at boosting the German foreign trade, rather than promoting international arms control."

"German arms exports intensify the arms race in regions such as the Middle East, South- and East Asia and South America," he said.

Bernhard Felmberg, who is also a GKKE co-chairman and leads the Protestant churches in Germany, said he was worried about the sale of German weaponry in restive areas like Pakistan, India, Rwanda, Yemen and Sudan.

Felmberg claimed that in these areas German arms fall into the wrong hands as there is no effective government supervision.

"The fact that German arms are illegally traded in market places in rural Afghanistan and Pakistan is proving that effective government controls in those countries are nonexistent," he said.

Around 8.8 percent of the weapons were exported to countries described as "problematic" as far as Germany's 1998 strict arms export guidelines are concerned, the report said.

The head of the Hesse Foundation for Peace and Conflict Research, Bernhard Moltmann, said that a total of 51 countries should not have received German weapons under a strict interpretation of the guidelines because they had poor human rights records, or were hotbeds of regional conflicts.

The representatives of the German churches further expressed deep concern over the sale of light and small German arms that could easily find their ways to the black markets in restive countries like Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The two main churches demanded more commitment by the German parliament to make sure that the existing arms export guidelines are not violated. They have also urged more transparency in the way arms export licenses are awarded.

In Germany, the National Security Council, a special body comprised of government ministers and officials, grants licenses for arms exports and imposes export policies.

RB/AKM